Welcome to the first installment of our year-end awards!

We do have to warn readers, right up front, that this is an insanely long article. If you're one of those "tl;dr" types of people, we would strongly advise you to go find a short listicle somewhere else, to read instead. Because this will be a marathon, not a sprint (as always).

We also would like to thank those readers who made nominations this year, as it is always helpful to hear different voices when contemplating who deserves each of these awards. We tried to credit these suggestions, but in the frenzy of writing we probably missed a few (for which we apologize profusely).

Without any further introduction, then (it's long enough as it is), here are our choices for the list of awards first created on the show The McLaughlin Group, which we have long co-opted for our own amusement.

   Biggest Winner Of 2021

We could interpret this negatively, by awarding Biggest Winner Of 2021 to the Taliban, or to (as was suggested by reader andygaus) authoritarianism. Or we could have gone rather neutral and given it to infrastructure, after the long wait for "Infrastructure Week" finally paid off.

But instead we're going positive. The Biggest Winners Of 2021 were Unions and (more widely) working Americans in general. The pandemic changed many things about the workplace, most notably the balance of power between employers and employees.

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The timing of this article is not coincidental. I am punting on writing a new column today because I am already hard at work on tomorrow's column, which (as always) will be an absolute tome. With 20 categories to cover, it's going to be a long read, just to warn everyone in advance.

I do have an update on the holiday schedule, however. I am moving up the date for Part 2 of the awards, which I had originally slotted in for next Friday. But next Friday is Christmas Eve, meaning many readers wouldn't even have the chance to read it until the next day, which is Christmas morning.

This, obviously, is a bad idea. So instead, we're moving the schedule up a day, and Part 2 of the year-end awards will appear next Thursday, the 23rd. This seems like a better idea for all concerned. There will then be no column on the 24th and I still won't commit to posting anything original next week (except for, whenever it appears, my roundup of the banished words list). I will post re-run articles, but that's as far as I'm going to promise (I need a vacation too!).

In any case, take a look at the awards categories below for next week's column and please offer up your nominations. There are a lot of them, so there's usually some award category that anyone worthy can be fit into. If you'd like to review, you can check out last year's column to see who got what back then.

And, as always throughout the holiday season, please consider donating to the site. Our annual pledge drive is off to a very slow start this year for some reason, so we do encourage you to give if you can afford it and are a regular reader of the site. Just click on the thermometer graphic at the head of this column and it'll take you to the donation page.

In any case, here are the categories for next week's final segment of the year-end awards. Please let me know your ideas down in the comments.

Destined For Political Stardom

Destined For Political Oblivion

Best Political Theater

Worst Political Theater

Worst Political Scandal

Most Underreported Story

Most Overreported Story

Biggest Government Waste

Best Government Dollar Spent

Boldest Political Tactic

Best Idea

Worst Idea

Sorry To See You Go

15 Minutes Of Fame

Best Spin

Worst Spin

Most Honest Person

Biggest Liar

Most Overrated

Most Underrated

Predictions

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant

While reviewing the past year's news in preparation for my year-end columns, I came across something interesting, but didn't mark it down for any special mention. It just seemed one more bit of flotsam in the tsunami of idiocy emanating from the Republican Party over the course of a year. But then today the New York Times provided an update on the situation, so I was left thinking: "that was then, this is now," and I decided to juxtapose the two. Call it a textbook example of Republican hypocrisy.

Back in March, after the American Rescue Plan passed Congress and was signed into law as a COVID-19 relief package, some Republicans were outraged. None of them in Congress had voted for the bill, so they couldn't realistically claim any credit for it (although some, like Representative Madison Cawthorn, did indeed try to do just that -- claim credit for a bill he had voted against, back home in his district). So a few of them tried painting it as a bad thing, and one in particular tried to stop the tide of federal money from washing into the states by issuing a rather unusual plea. Here is an excerpt from an open letter Senator Rick Scott of Florida sent to "governors and mayors across the United States," begging them to just flat-out reject at least some of the money:

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California Governor Gavin Newsom has decided that the way to fight fire is with some fire of his own. This can be a valuable political tactic at times, to show the opposition party that their own schemes can be used by the other side in unforeseen ways. But doing so always runs the risk of sparking a conflagration that burns everything down. And this could be one of those times.

It's understandable what Newsom is trying to do and the message he is trying to send. It's an important message, and its intended targets are the six conservative justices on the United States Supreme Court. Plainly stated, this message is: "Be very careful what legal tactics you decide are constitutional, because they will be used in ways you do not like or approve of."

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There will be a significant phone call made in Washington today. It may even be happening as I write this. President Joe Biden and Senator Joe Manchin are going to talk directly to each other in an effort to strike some sort of deal on Biden's Build Back Better agenda -- call it a summit of the Joes.

Manchin, of course, is never at a loss for reasons why he still can't bring himself to publicly support the bill being crafted in the Senate. These reasons shift over time and he's always willing to create new ones if previous issues he has raised have already been addressed. Months ago, he called for a "pause" on the whole process, which must translate to: "let's just not do anything for another year or two," since no matter how much time passes he still seems to feel no sense of urgency whatsoever.

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Even though it is still laughably early to make any such future predictions -- especially when it comes to both the economy and politics -- Joe Biden and the Democrats could actually be poised to have a decent shot in next year's midterm elections.

That may sound shocking to some, mostly because pundits are currently predicting doom and gloom for both Biden's presidency and the midterms. But next November is still a long way away, and things change over time. Including current preconceptions.

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Congress seems to be dispensing with all the other high-profile things that were on its calendar for the end of the year, and it's still only the second week in December. This could bode well for the chances of the Build Back Better bill actually passing the Senate on Majority Leader Chuck Schumer's stated timeline ("before Christmas"). Additionally, the bill seems to have acquired two things that will ultimately help both its passage through Congress and its appeal to the public: a deadline and an excellent "poster child" issue.

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I have to begin by apologizing for the trivial nature of today's column. It seems that after posting my annual cute kittens yesterday (to kick off our 2021 Holiday Fundraising Drive) I am now getting in touch with my inner Grinch. Or Scrooge, maybe. Or my inner nitpicky pedant, at the very least.

Because when I read the news this morning, I saw all the media hyperventilation over the arson attack which destroyed what Fox News calls (with capital letters, of course) their "All-American Christmas Tree" outside their New York headquarters. Pretty much every other news organization reported it exactly the same way Fox did -- as the destruction of "a Christmas tree." But this is not correct. It is not true. It is, to coin a phrase, fake news. Because it's pretty easy to tell, when seeing photos or videos of the arson or the aftermath that it is not actually a tree.

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As 2021 draws to a close, we have to say it's been a rather mixed year all around. COVID-19 is still a threat, but nowhere near the threat it was at this time last year. Sane people have gotten vaccinated three times while the lunatic fringe still endangers us all by refusing to get even one "Fauci ouchie." And we seem to all be very slowly learning the letters of the Greek alphabet, as Delta may now be giving way to Omicron. So we're not out of the coronavirus woods yet.

But please remember at this time last year, nobody had been vaccinated, while now 82 percent of Americans age 12 and over have at least gotten their first shot and 70 percent have been fully vaccinated. We've obviously not quite yet reached the fabled "herd immunity" but we are getting a lot closer to that goal, at least.

Also a comfort is the fact that sane and rational individuals are running the federal government, instead of narcissistic lunatics and grifters and insurrectionists. The year started off with one of the most shocking events in modern American history, as a mob of conspiracy theorists and Trump cultists tried to stop Congress from finalizing the presidential election. Some of them are now in jail, while prosecutions continue. Granted, the leaders of this movement are still walking around free, but at least their attempt at overthrowing the government failed. That's something to be thankful for, obviously.

I have to say it has been a lot easier to write about politics this year than for the past four years. There have been frustrations and disappointments, of course, but they are all well within the normal range of political maneuvering instead of being batpoop crazy. That's a definite improvement, and it makes it a lot easier to sit down every day and write about current political events. At some points, I've actually been bored with the slow pace of things happening in Washington -- a statement I have honestly not made since Barack Obama was sitting in the Oval Office. So there's that, too.

Behind the scenes here at ChrisWeigant.com, things have been improving. We're using a new computer that isn't 20 years old, the office has been completely redone and revamped (a COVID project that has taken all year and is still not complete, but is nearing the finish line at least), and the process of reading and commenting on the news has improved greatly.

However, this hasn't been without its drawbacks. Due to the amount of time it has taken (as well as my inherent laziness), I have been severely remiss in answering the comments section this year. I do apologize and promise to make an effort to improve -- my first new year's resolution. You readers deserve better, I realize, so mea culpa maxima for falling down on the job so much.

Nobody's perfect, right?

But at least I have a much better outlook on next year, no matter what happens in the midterm congressional elections. I haven't thought about just walking away from blogging at all this year, which (again) is more than I can say for the previous four. So I am fully committed to providing reality-based commentary for all of 2022.

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It is December once again, so we're going to have to take care of some year-end business today. And tomorrow too, for that matter.

Let's begin with that -- our tentative schedule for the month. Today, we'll be throwing open the nominations for the first half of our year-end awards, so feel free to peruse the categories listed below and send your thoughts as to who you think deserves any of them. I didn't start asking for public nominations during the first years these columns ran, but I have been more than impressed at the quality of suggestions I've gotten since I have, so I do encourage everyone to suggest nominees! I take them all very seriously (except for the ones that make me burst out laughing, of course).

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